DONALD GLOVER PLAYS THE UNIVERSE’S SMOOTHEST OPERATOR

He’s on fire on TV (he created and stars in Atlanta, which screens on SBS On Demand) and in music (as his rap alter ego Childish Gambino), and now Donald Glover, 34, is tackling a beloved Star Wars character—the slick, stylish smuggler Lando Calrissian.

The original owner of the Millennium Falcon, Lando was played by Billy Dee Williams in two of the original Star Wars films. Father-of-two Glover, who rocks Lando’s signature capes, says he tried to keep his performance light, loose and unique. “Nobody wants to see you pretend to be somebody else,” he says. His technique? “To just do the most fun thing every time.”

After Glover was cast, he met with Williams. “He’s like, ‘Just be charming,’ ” says Glover. “I took what he said ... and amped it up.”

The Star Wars movies are the first Glover remembers seeing as a kid. “My dad took me out of school for Episode I [ The Phantom Menace],” he says. “We all watched it as a family— that was a big deal.”

And as a kid he owned an action figure of his favourite character: Lando. “This guy’s got it together,” says Glover of the character, one of the sharper dressers in the galaxy. “He takes pride in the clothing. It makes things easier.”

With Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy flagging a possible Lando origin film in the future (she told France’s Premiere magazine the company “would love to tell a story about Lando Calrissian one day”) Glover is ready to don the cape once more. “It would always be fun to be Lando again,” says Glover. “I think it would just be fun to do.”